Psalm 23, Can You Say It in Earnest?, Part 2

Psalm 23. Can you say it in earnest? That is the question that I introduced in my last entry. How could David possibly have said this Psalm in earnest? Well, let’s take a brief look at David’s life (some of us may be a little sketchy on the narrative). He was a shepherd as a young man. Thus, David knew the role of the shepherd and the nature of sheep that are portrayed in Psalm 23 very well. At this time, in an odd ceremony, David is anointed King by the priest Samuel, which is made all the more awkward by the fact that there was already an anointed king, King Saul, on the throne. While visiting his brothers who were in King Saul’s army he kills the giant Goliath who daily came out and defied God’s army. David eventually is accepted into the King Saul’s house, is loved by many, and becomes renowned for his bravery and fighting skills. He actually gets more fame and praise than Saul. A jealous Saul tries to kill David; and ultimately Jonathan, Saul’s son, tells David to flee. David’s family comes to him. Saul pursues David and his men on and off for years (Imagine being forced into exile and on top of that being pursued by your fellow countrymen!!!). Eventually, Saul and Jonathan die in a battle with the Philistines. David is made king of Judah and then soon after king of all Israel after his lengthy absence. 

Some believe that the entire first book of the Psalms, of which Psalm 23 is the middle, pertains to the years of David being pursued by Saul or are at least reflective of that time. Others believe that Psalm 23 is a Psalm by David once he had become king. Regardless of which one is correct, David had lengthy periods of trials and knew God’s provision for him. 

There are at least two things that David did persistently that are evident from this Psalm (and his life) that factored into his earnestness in speaking Psalm 23: 1) he recognized His sovereignty and thanked God for his provision and protection; and 2) he worked hard at knowing Him better (of course the Holy Spirit was at work too). These two things are important to know because I am going to pose a series of questions that force you to compare yourself with David in later entries. When you find yourself paling in comparison to David it is typically because he did one or both of these more frequently and more rigorously than we do.

Is Your God Able to Fight His Own Battles?

Gideon is a great person in the history presented in the Bible.  He was from a family that was the weakest in Manasseh, and he was the least in his family.  However, the angel of the Lord called him "mighty man of valor".  Gideon was instructed to pull down the idols made to the false gods in his area.  He followed the command at night.  

When the followers of the false gods saw what had been done, they were irate.  They demanded Gideon be executed for what they saw as his crime.  Here is that exchange as recorded in Judges 6:

When the men of the town rose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the Asherah beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar that had been built. ²⁹ And they said to one another, “Who has done this thing?” And after they had searched and inquired, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing.” ³⁰ Then the men of the town said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, for he has broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it.” ³¹ But Joash said to all who stood against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been broken down.” ³² Therefore on that day Gideon was called Jerubbaal, that is to say, “Let Baal contend against him,” because he broke down his altar. (Judges 6.28-32 ESV)

This is a great passage of Scripture.  It is a challenge only the One true God would be able to satisfy, because only He is real.  All other gods are false.

Sometimes I feel like going into battle for God when someone disrespects Him.  When someone opposes God it seems like we should fight for Him.  Let's have a crusade!  Not like Billy Graham, but like the crusaders of old!  Conquer and pillage, rape and murder.  Make them pay for dishonoring our God!  However, that is not what we are called to do.  What I described is Islam, not Biblical Christianity.  When popes ordered people to be killed they showed the evil of their hearts and the lack of true spiritual authority in their office.

If you think about it, the Gospel is most effective in places where there is persecution.  The saying goes, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."  The Gospel prospers not when we conquer, but when we allow God to conquer us and surrender our will to His.  When we do that we can realize that we do not need to fight His battles for Him, we just need to do His will.  The followers of Baal and Asherah (as well as those who follow allah and the papacy) have to fight on their gods' behalf.  That is because their gods are powerless.  The God of the Bible is all-powerful.  He does not need our defense.  If we stand bold, it is not to protect God, but to honor Him and to be a witness of His greatness.  

Surely, our God is able to fight His own battles; we, Christians, are the only ones who can truthfully say that.

Pete Garbacki is a minister with Time for Truth Ministries and Mission.Brasil.  Follow him on Twitter @mission_brasil or FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com/pete.garbacki.

In Defense of Connectional Polity

By Matthew Everhard

With the close of another large General Assembly this week, the world of Presbyterianism begins to wind down what has been a very active summer of business meetings. Many of these meetings have been heated. Some have even been vitriolic. Each has spawned thousands of blog articles and Twitter posts. 

The gavels have been busy. The podiums, once polished, have since been worn dull. The overtures—both ascending and descending—have been, well, ascending and descending for most of June and July.  Most of the microphones have now been unplugged. 

Let’s look at what has been accomplished…

One assembly (PCA) dissected the theological ramifications of intinction, taking communion by dipping the bread in the cup rather than receiving the elements in two sacramental acts. Another (ARP) spent their energy debating their relationship to an academic institution’s governing board. A third (EPC) made a political statement on a few clauses in the “Obamacare” act. A fourth (PCUSA) voted on whether to invest or divest in corporations doing business in Israel. 

A brief survey of some of these more “interesting” matters debated may cause the uninitiated to ask: What is the point in all this? Indeed. What is the point? 

I freely admit that my role as a Teaching Elder in the EPC comes with far more desirable responsibilities than reviewing sub-committee minutes. I would rather preach or baptize a baby any day. For that matter, I’d even prefer a church disciplinary hearing! 

Nevertheless, I’d like to state a few reasons that all of these organizational structures are still part of the work of the Kingdom of God. 

First, the Body of Christ by definition is an organic living connection of various parts, all in submission together to our Head, Jesus Christ. Paul makes this argument in 1 Corinthian 12. Of course, one of the best ways that we show our unity in Christ is by actually meeting together to worship. At each assembly, worship is an integral part. All the assemblies that I know of received communion as a major focus of the event. The worship and sacraments tend not to get much press, but are central to our summer meetings.

Second, meeting together as believers on a regional (presbytery) national (assembly) or even global scale is a biblical act. Acts 15 is the account of the Jerusalem council where one of the most pressing theological questions of the day was settled, that of the inclusion of the gentiles. This meeting took place by way of gathering the apostles and elders of a number of first century churches. By meeting to discuss the relevant theological controversies of our day, we are carrying on that biblical process of discernment, even though the councils of men do sometimes fail (WCF 1.10 and 31.3). 

Ironically, these meetings that often display our disagreements are intended by God to show our unity. Anyone who says that the church of Jesus Christ shouldn’t have serious disagreements about weighty issues simply hasn’t read Paul’s epistles carefully. Don’t forget that another metaphor for the church is a family. Do you know any families that never argue? 

Third, is there really any alternative? Sure, a church could refuse to participate or even to choose independence. Non-denominational churches have the advantage of pointing out the foolish decisions of other believers’ councils. But what does that communicate to the unbelieving world? That non-denominational local churches can’t get along with anyone at all?

 

I am not sure that independence or non-participation better communicate “unity” to the unbelieving world than rowdy business sessions on a late Friday afternoon. 

The Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 31 details the full theological underpinnings of our reasons for meeting together. There we read these wise lines: 

It belongs to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of his Church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same; which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in His Word.

Call me a glutton for punishment. Sentence me to death by long boring meetings. But I still believe these words in our confession. I am still Presbyterian despite some of our lengthy debates and bone-headed decisions. 

I will see you next year in Denver!

Matthew Everhard is the pastor of Faith EvangelicalPresbyterian Church (EPC) in Brooksville, Florida. Follow him on Twitter @matt_everhard or friend him on facebook at www.facebook.com/pastor.everhard

First Love

First Love
By: Drew Taylor

Darkness. That is the best description of what I felt as I walked through the seven-story mall in downtown Bangkok, Thailand on a Saturday afternoon in mid-June. Off for the afternoon while serving on a mission trip, our team headed to the mall to experience big-city life in the Far East. In the MBK Center, hundreds of people crammed the walkways, millions of lights flickered across stores that advertised cellphones, videogames, clothes, candy, and much more. Despite all the business, all I felt was an overwhelming sense of darkness. Half-way across the world, in one of the most prominent cities in the eastern-half of planet earth, I encountered many, many people who did not have a first love. David, in 2^nd Samuel 22:29 acknowledges God with the praise, “You, Lord, are my lamp; the Lord turns my darkness into light.” In a spiritually dark place like Thailand, the feeling of darkness will pursue you aggressively. In America, the same darkness creeps in much more subtly.

We are living in a spiritually dark time in a spiritually dark country. The “already” of Jesus Christ’s inauguration of God’s kingdom through his life, death, and resurrection is over-shadowed by the “not-yet” of God’s kingdom on Earth failing to be fully present until Christ’s return. I am consistently guilty of falling on both sides of this pendulum. I’m either not accepting God’s grace while trying to righteously work for a righteous status with God through “ministry,” or I accept his grace cheaply, viewing it as license to sin and violate God’s holy law. Lately, it has been much of the former. While I have accepted the grace Paul talks about in Ephesians 2:8-9, I fail to accept the second half of the verse “not by works so that no man can boast.” Failing to live out of this grace and falling back into works based righteousness, I cheapen the work of Christ while attempting to increase my own feeble efforts. Maybe this is you… If so, you are not alone, you are merely hiding amongst the shadows of your own darkness rather than in the truth of God’s light provided by his daily grace. Jesus’ disciple, John, paints this picture beautifully in 1^st John 1:5-6, when he states that “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.”

For me, it’s about failing to hold on to my first love. By loving myself first rather than God, I worship the idol of self, much like the Israelites loved the idols they had created to worship instead of God. This is communicated in Hosea 2:7, which compares the Israelites to a cheating wife. The verse states- “She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them.  Then she will say, I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.”

Those people in the mega-mall in Bangkok did not have the Lord as a lamp, and despite being surrounded by people, wealth, and entertainment, lived dependent on themselves and thus in utter darkness. Sadly, many of us who know Christ and have experienced his light will often revert back to the darkness of worshipping an idol, worshipping self. When living as dependent children of God, we live as we were created to live… In the light. Fully alive. In love with our first love.

Drew Taylor
RTS Orlando MDiv Student (3rd year)
Pastoral Intern at Willow Creek Church (PCA)

...I certainly don't recommend Christianity.

Not that there's anything wrong with the Port.

A Review of the 32nd General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian church

By Matthew Everhard

Last month, Faith EPC of Brooksville sent ruling elder Gwynn Blair and I as delegates to the 32^nd annual General Assembly of our denomination, the EPC, in Baton Rouge Louisiana.  Delightfully, this was the first time that I also took my wife and children to the Assembly.

As an event, the G.A. was very well done. Worship times were Christ-honoring and reverent. The preaching was outstanding this year. Nothing compares to elders and their families singing gloriously to our Risen Lord and sharing the Lord’s Table as an entire denomination.

Credit here goes to our Stated Clerk and Executive Pastor, Jeff Jeremiah, and host pastor Gerrit Dawson and their staffs for spearheading the event!

Our host church, First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge, did an amazing job in hosting. We were fed “southern style.” I was particularly impressed with the way that the host church and the EPC headquarters prepared events for the children. It was wonderful to see my three kids enjoy fellowship with other “P.K’s” (pastors’ kids).

Growing Pains

The EPC is growing quickly. In the past five years we have doubled in size from 182 churches when I was ordained to our current 364 churches. This shows the fact that being a part of the EPC, a denomination that is solidly Reformed in theology and amicable in spirit, is attractive to a larger and larger number of churches.

Although a bit of our growth is attributable to church planting (we pray for far more!) the majority of our growth has come through disaffected churches departing from the increasingly liberal PCUSA. The theology of the old mainline is regarded by many as a sinking Titanic of sorts, rent asunder and foundering.

While this may seem as unqualified good news, the “other side of the coin” is that the EPC is receiving many new churches that are likely not as conservative as our own congregation. Almost all of these churches, for instance, have women elders and quite a few have women pastors (teaching elders) as well.

In our own Presbytery of Florida, for instance, we have—in just two short years—abdicated our former position of complementarianism (men elders only) in favor of accepting women elders and pastors. This change is happening rapidly, and to the chagrin of the elders of this particular local church. 

Read my article "Pastors With Purses" on this topic here.

How dramatically this shift impacts the EPC, only time will tell. Having said that, let me point out a few other highlights of the 32^nd Assembly…

Missions

The EPC maintains a strong missionary passion. As a denomination we send missionaries into the 10/40 window regularly—regarded as the most dangerous places on earth. Our focus as a denomination is on reaching and converting the Muslim world. While a daunting task, “someone has to do it.” Let it be us!

We prayed for 37 of our missionaries in the GA. This was a wonderful moment. I strongly encourage all members of Faith to obtain one of our World Outreach missionary prayer flip-charts. My family regularly prays for all of our missionaries in a year, and many of them are in “sensitive areas” that cannot be disclosed. Our denomination has a plan called “Engage2025” to challenge each presbytery to plant a church in an unreached people group within fifteen years.

More on Church Growth

The EPC has officially closed the New Wineskins and National Non-Geographic Presbyteries that were formerly used to bring in new churches under transition. Now, churches must come directly into established geographic presbyteries. Anywhere between dozens and hundreds of churches will be seeking to enter the EPC in the coming months, as the PCUSA continues its pernicious slide into heresy. Only the Lord knows how many churches will enter the EPC, and how many will enter a brand new denomination, just opened, called ECO (Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians).

In my view, the formation of ECO is a good thing—it will serve as a “middleman” between the EPC and the liberal PCUSA. Hopefully, the more conservative churches will come here and those less so will go to ECO happily.  

Church Planting

The EPC maintains a focus on being “missional” by intending to plant dozens of new churches here in the US. During the Assembly, many of our church planters were invited to pray to open and close business meeting sessions. This brought church planting to the fore of our denomination’s attention. As expected, each of the church planters had a miraculous story of how God is moving in their midst! This was stirring to listen to, as many pastors reported on growth with humility and tears. No church planting story is ever the same. Hearing about these great moves of the Lord’s hand only encouraged me to continue to press on as Faith Church plants Providence Church in Spring Hill.

Statement on Religious Freedom

The EPC took a rather unprecedented move in making a somewhat “political” statement during the assembly. The EPC rarely talks politics (this is a nice feature of our denomination) but this time, the relevant issues touched on abortion. We have always stood against abortion as an evil in our culture. This year, we took a stand for religious freedom by officially opposing some of the clauses in the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as “Obamacare”). This document passed unanimously states in part:

It is the position of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church that these regulations [mandates to cover abortifacent drugs, abortion related procedures and services] constitute an unprecedented overreach by the federal government and an infringement upon religious liberty and rights of conscience guaranteed by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

You can (and should) read this document in full here. 

Conclusion

To wrap up, though I continue to have some misgivings about the quick growth of the EPC through transfer churches from a much more liberal body, I am optimistic that the EPC remains a solid--if imperfect--denomination. Our historical moorings to the Reformed faith, and specifically the authority of Scripture, will see us through many storms of changing times, if we continue to “hold fast the faith” by building on the foundation of Jesus Christ. God help us.

You can read three of my published articles on this event here.  

Pastor Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Brooksville. Follow him on Twitter @matt_everhard or "friend" him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pastor.everhard

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Anger: A Feast Fit for a King

Throughout this summer, our church has been studying the Ten Commandments in a sermon series entitled, "The Laws of Love". Last week our senior Pastor preached on the sixth commandment, "Thou Shall Not Murder". As he pointed out, if there ever was a commandment where our initial reading would cause us to think that we've at least kept one of them, it would be murder. But Jesus doesn't let us off the hook so easily. In the middle of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount he exposes all of us as murders:
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment'. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgement." (Matthew 5:21-22a)


Ouch. 
I've been thinking this week about how often I am guilty of exactly what Jesus is saying. Anger (i.e. the unrighteous kind; we won't go into it in this post, but make no mistake there is in the Scriptures an anger against sin that is commended by God) is a spiritual cancer. It eats away at us in the church  as a full-frontal assault on the twin pillars of truth and love, both of which find their foundation in the chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ. Anger can cause us to emphasize one over the other; truth at the expense of love (which is barbaric), and love without its origin in truth (which is much closer to hate). I think Frederick Buechner, a 20th century novelist and Presbyterian minister, said it well. He writes concerning anger,
 "Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.” 


Anger is indeed a feast and plays us for the fool. It fools us into thinking we are storing up rage against a brother or sister, or even God, and thus erodes truth because we are only weakening ourselves. And anger destroys our own joy in community  and as believers, which is the most un-loving we can be toward ourselves, much less our brothers and sisters. If you're like me, you're tired of feeding this monster. 


The great Reformer John Calvin calls us in the church to be "an embassy for reconciling men to God" in his commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:18. Paul had reminded the Corinthians of their identity and mission. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:17-18) Anger can be the antithesis of that mission. Notice how Paul tells us that the rallying cry for our ministry of reconciliation with our brothers and sisters is firmly rooted in the reconciliation bought for us through the blood and atonement of Jesus. How much more then is at stake in our ministry of reconciliation? Our anger not only makes us into murders, but it creates spiritual amnesia. We forget our reconciliation in Christ. And we forget the ministry of reconciliation for which He has called us his own. 


Lee Hutchings is the Pastor of Discipleship at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Ridgeland, Mississippi